Palestinian boy holding toy gun is shot

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian boy carrying a toy gun was shot and seriously wounded by Israeli troops Thursday during clashes in the northern West Bank town of Jenin.

The boy, Ahmed el-Khatib, 12, was taken to an Israeli hospital with serious head injuries and brain damage.

Groups of young men were throwing stones at Israeli soldiers who were trying to arrest a local leader of the militant group Islamic Jihad, Hossam Jaradat, who was wounded in the leg. According to the Israeli army, gunshots also were fired at the soldiers.

Soldiers noticed what they thought was an armed man standing about 130 yards away from them and opened fire, hitting the target, which turned out to be the boy. He was evacuated by the Palestinian Red Crescent, and when the Israeli soldiers "approached the spot, they found the weapon which the Palestinian was holding and discovered it to be a plastic gun," according to an Israeli army statement, which expressed regret for the wounding.

The Israeli commander in the West Bank ordered an investigation into the shooting.

The Jenin operation, involving more than 30 army jeeps and two helicopters, was one of a series of Israeli actions to arrest members of Islamic Jihad and Hamas after a suicide bombing and rocket and mortar attacks directed at Israel from Gaza.

An Israeli soldier was lightly wounded Thursday by a mortar shell fired from Gaza, and the military responded by firing artillery into the fields from which mortars and rockets are launched.